DESCRIPTION (taken from application): The NIH-NIGMS Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program (NIH-SREU) at Boston University will involve as mentors 14 NIH-funded faculty from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Psychology, the Interdisciplinary Major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB), and the Departments of Biochemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the Boston University Medical Center (BUMC). Funding is requested for 10 undergraduates per summer for four summers to conduct 10-week, biomedical research projects in the laboratories of these mentors. Students with non-biological backgrounds and who are majoring in Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or Chemistry, will form the pool of applicants from which participants will be selected. The specific aims and objectives of this program are: 1. To facilitate the interest and ability of students trained in computational sciences, physical sciences or engineering to pursue careers in biomedicine in which both their quantitative/physical science training and "wet laboratory" skills will be useful, for example in the emerging field of Bioinfomatics. 2. To increase the awareness of these students about biological and biomedical research problems that can benefit from collaborations among quantitative/physical scientists and biological/biomedical scientists. 3. To provide an opportunity for the undergraduate participants to learn research skills and perspectives that they ordinarily would not gain during their regular course of study in their major. 4. To help increase the number of such students enrolling in graduate programs in the biomedical sciences and in areas representing the intersection of these sciences with the more quantitative and physical sciences.